Thursday, September 3, 2009

Homemade Steam Buns!

About a month ago, I stumbled onto an old copy of Sunset Vegetarian Cooking, a thin paperback volume of retro-ish meat-free recipes. It's from 1981, and the photos have that awesome reddish-yellow old-school tint. Though it's not all vegan, most of the lacto-ovo recipes are veganizable. And it was only $1 at the Goodwill!

When I was in the thrift store, flipping through the pages, a mouth-watering photo of some Cashew-Mushroom Steam Buns caught my eye. I always buy the frozen cabbage, mushroom, or red bean-stuffed buns at the Asian market. But they're made with nasty white flour. This recipe called for whole wheat (I would have subbed it anyway!).

Though it took FOREVER to make these last night, I wound up with 12 cute little steamed buns:

Steaming gives the dough a light, airiness that really melts in your mouth. And the filling is better than any I've had in a storebought bun. It's made from raw cashews, mushrooms, ginger, bamboo shoots, soy sauce, onion, and white wine. Here's an inside shot, though I swear it tastes better than it looks:

I wanted to give out the recipe since it's such an old cookbook, but I did a quick search and found that Sunset Vegetarian Cooking is still available on Amazon. Basically though, you make a yeasted dough and let it rise for an hour. Then you divide it into 12 balls. Roll those balls into small rounds and stuff with cashew-mushroom filling. Fold up the sides, twist the tops, and let rise another 30 minutes. Then you just steam them in a steamer basket for 15 minutes. They re-steam from the fridge or freeze wonderfully!

I'm always looking for new ways to cook kale, and this didn't disappoint with water chesnuts, shitake mushrooms, onion, garlic, diced tomatoes, and splashes of shoyu and mirin.

This was my first time cooking a recipe from an iPhone app, and it was very convenient. The ingredients were easy to pull up while grocery shopping, and I was able to read through the recipe at the gym, so I knew what to do as soon as I got home to work on dinner.

19 comments:

Those steam buns look soooo good! I love snacky food like that, you can dip them in a million sauces and just devour them! The filling sounds so great. And the side of kale would be delicious and fresh. Great post!

The steamed buns look amazing- I just HAVE to make them for my husband, he loves those things!! Sounds like it's pretty easy too, Thanks for the idea! On to the Kale- I have never eaten it until a few years ago and I would saute it with some olive oil, garlic, salt and crushed red pepper (I'm Italian and that how my dad made all of our greens back in the day- and it worked awesomely) But now I eat it raw mostly, and I think I like it just a bit better that way. I chop it up really small with some lemon juice and olive oil... mmm. But your kale looks so yummy- I have to try something new!

oh man, i need to get an iPhone! that's awesome that the iPhone app recipe was tasty. very cool on being able to pull up what you needed for the recipe while you shopped. i love it!

i always forget about mirin & water chestnuts - i need to remember that they're tasty additions to asiam themed yummies. kale rocks! i'm the same way, always looking for another tasty use for it.

hooray for a great thift-score! w00t! i love the cover of the sunset vegetarian cooking, too.

i think the steamed buns look super stellar, and i love that they're filled with cashews 'n mushies. mmmmmmmmmm! i've never had a steamed bun before - i think i'm gonna give them a whirl sometime & make some gluten-free ones. they look light, indeed - and oh-so yummers!

OH!!! - I have that cookbook in my stash - A True Classic! Whenever I look at the cover, I get all sappy likes it's an old friend come back for another visit. What I like most about Vegetarian Cookbooks is that it's rare to NOT be able to veganize a recipe. Steamed Buns - yum.

There used to be a restaurant in ATL that sold vegan BBQ steam buns, and they were, without a doubt, the absolute best thing ever. But they were probably made of something terrible for you, and they stopped carrying them. :(

But anyways, these look like pretty good (and healthier) replacements!

My name is Bianca ...

About Me

I'm a 9-year vegan, 19-year vegetarian from the Mid-South, not too far from the muddy banks of the Mississippi River. And that means cornbread, butter beans, and collard greens.
These days, I live in Memphis. Check out my cookbook — Cookin' Crunk. It's filled with yummilicious veganized soul food and country classics.